Coping with on-again, off-again federal funding
The whole chaotic mess was over in two days. But it threatened the consistency and security of critical services across the nation (and here in northwest Ohio), forcing social service agencies to rethink the basics of how they’re funded.
The first letter arrived very late on Jan. 13 without warning and with no explanation of what led up to it or what its repercussions might be. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, cancelled up to 2,000 grants nationwide (valued at more than $2 billion) to mental health and drug addiction program providers, representing as much as a quarter of SAMHSA’s annual budget. Termination letters sent to nonprofits indicated the grants “no longer align” with the Trump administration’s priorities and would no longer be funded, effective immediately.
The SAMHSA program cuts represented almost $1.7 million in funding for programs in northwest Ohio. “These cuts are at the heart of our mental health and substance abuse safety net,” explained Deacon Dzierzawski, president of Epiphany Community Services in Swanton. “Communities would lose effective, evidence-based programming that is critical in addressing mental health and substance abuse issues. And the way HHS (the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) went about it was abhorrent. People will die because of this.”
Program cuts threatened all types of mental health and drug programs, including screening services, referral services, recovery houses and treatment programs. In addition to Epiphany Community Services (a national firm that helps communities to mitigate the local impact of mental illness and substance abuse), the cuts came to such local programs as Harbor, the Zeph Center and Sylvania Prevention Alliance…